Down goes the Dow

41

Congratulations.

+1!

We are at 33 years married, 35 years together. Roughly half of my family, friends and peer group at about our - ahem - level of maturity - have tapped out by this point...

Asked my wife out a little over 50 years ago. Her response “I don’t even know you.” Married two years later. Each of us have had health challenges in recent years; it would be tough to go through that alone.

there are two main consumer inflation numbers:

CPI, which just came out

PCE, which we will get Sept 30 I believe

The conventional wisdom is that the Fed cares more about the PCE number.

complimenti. Spero che quest'anno e bellisima.

I've been buying energy lately...3% yield from VDE, and seems that OPEC wants to keep the price above $75. I don't think we'll have a recession and the SPR has to be refilled. And sometimes oil is a good hedge against inflation and some kinds of stock market weaknesses.

In any case, you get paid 3% to wait.

I see you've been brushing up on your Italian, now when you buy an Alfa Romeo you can curse at it in it's native tongue.

Thanks to all ( agip, GoI, and AR ) for the best wishes. If you remember early this year I had mentioned that our first date, a Godard double feature, was almost our last. So I found it peculiar his passing on our wedding anniversary many years later. I told my wife this AM and she was like, I can't believe you remember this $hit.

OMFG, LOL!

I rewatched Breathless recently - good lord even though it was made well before I was born it made me feel young and limitless. Such a great piece of film.

And Weekend is a nasty bit of work but has aged very well.

I'm particularly scared of the markets right now. is that just me or is that the general vibe?

anyone else pushing 9/10 on the worry scale?

I'm not very worried, mainly because the bulk of our investment accounts are in relatively safe investments (investment grade corporate bonds, GICs, cash), with fairly small exposure to the markets and especially very small exposure to US markets, which are quite volatile right now.

I've been hip-deep into a big, complex financial planning spreadsheet to see how comfortable we are with impending retirement, in light of our post-employment spending plans. If inflation stays high AND housing markets tank AND stock markets stagnate or crash I could be eating cat food under a bridge somewhere by the time I'm 70 instead of travelling the globe. Maybe it will be Spanish cat food under a nice bridge in Barcelona though... :-)

Our two spoiled cats are rather picky, so not sure how well that works. Our daughter’s Chihuahua will eat almost anything, and may speak the language, if you need companionship.

agip has told a story of working for a hedge fund that was betting against the build up to the GFC that blew up before the collapse. In 2004 after the Tech bottom James Gorman now CEO of Morgan Stanley was hired to head the brokerage unit. Before he even took his chair he fired a third of the advisors in our office. The manager went a few months later. In September of 2008 I bought Morgan Stanley common and preferred at ~$19 and ~$10. While at a conference in Denver at he same time a big hitter was nervously chain smoking as he watched his net worth evaporate. My investment though significant, was not net worth threatening, but my job was. Morgan Stanley barely survived the next handful of week.

This year we have seen spectacular collapses at Ark Funds and Micro Strategies. For a brief period in the sun they were the rage. Scott Minerd and Jeffrey Gundlach have joined Mike Wilson on the 3,000-3,200 S&P 500 downside target. Of course once we get there there will be others who will look to the March 2020 low as the next level to watch. As for me, I don’t believe S&P 500 GAAP EPS will bottom anywhere close to $200, with $100 very possible. Go with $120 and 12 multiple and you are at 1,440.

I admit to being somewhat surprised and dismayed to read this given that I have long considered agip to be the voice of reason on this thread. I fear he may have succumbed to the ‘Chicken Little’ syndrome so often expressed by so many here.

No, I am not worried, but my situation may be different than agip’s and other pre-retirees. I am a retiree who planned well (I think) and am in a position where I can afford to ride out these bumps in the road.

My advice had always been ignore the day-to-day noise and focus on the signal. You will sleep better now and in retirement.

I am not worried. And I am comforted by the fact that today the market settled in and even ended up for this tech/nasdaq heavy portfolio.

Looking for the right point to put the last little bit of cash into equities/ETS.F

* before we trigger some ETF - EFT fiasco (ring a bell?), let me correct my post. I intended ETF butI I am bouncing around on the bike on a fluid trainer and typing/word processing is hard.

Calling caution “chicken little syndrome” when facts show the NASDAQ went nowhere 3/2000 thru 7/2016. Why did the NASDAQ triple by 12/31/2021? Oh, the great growth companies. I guess they have just stalled out a bit. No worries, little chicken livered investors. :-)

And looking forward to moving back into leveraged territory that had worked so well for me prior to this year when I pulled back somewhat.